Clipped Wings

Feathers are meant for the sky. They just are.

But there is an ancient disease threatening to wreck the church, and taint the raw gospel.

The Church is afraid of feathers. 

Birds are freedom on wing. I am learning that many Church's, and Christians, fear this. Instead of trusting the Holy Spirit in a person, we often see these wings in another's soul, as something to fear. What if they veer and go off course? What if they leave our church? What if they don't do things like we do? What if Jesus tells them (personally) something different then what He told us?

So. We clip their wings. We grab them, cut what isn't molding well. We cut them at soul level. Each hover, push, and clip telling them they are unacceptable. But that this ground bound state can earn them love. 

We make this act of preventing flight, look like a holy thing. We take their ability to fly, and we expect loyalty. We take their free, and we snuff it out. In the name of preferences gone rouge... 

But the toxic twist I hate most, is we do it under Jesus name, and under the banner of...Love. And this? It causes deep confusion. Making a soul twist in spasm. Cause it's aimed at our soul cry. This place we all carry deep, this wanting to be loved. This needing a home, a place to belong. We aim arrows there to form allegiance. To a church, a leader, a person. My greatest ache is that it tells lies about God. 

It makes a soul wonder if God clips wings too.

Because what we believe spiritually affects EVERYTHING. How we see God, how we see others, how we see ourselves... Which in turn, changes how we act, it changes what we believe we should do...can do...even with Jesus. 

It changes what we believe we are worth.  

And worth? This pulses the soul. Soars or cripples a life. Free will is this amazing thing. With it God allows us to choose Him for ourselves, but He also allows us to injure others. He allows us to pressure, cut, reject, and ruin emotions, thoughts, and identity. He has given us the power of life, and death. And this? {sigh}

                      ~My story~

My story... { breath }  I don't know how to tell it. I know someday the full of it will be required. I know because I have been given glimpses of where He is taking me. I worry because I am still stuck in believing I have to protect people, even when their wrong has affected me. There is also the hard true, that most of us have people around us who are "reporters". They see us do something, say something, and they run back to whomever, with wreckful loose lips. Or maybe it's you who does this to others? Please be mindful in heart.

Jesus doesn't need informants. He isn't mute. If we aren't speaking words that smile His name, we aren't helping.

 I am learning...will learn... That testimonies are told because of Jesus.  They aren't to be told for our own glory or furthering, just as they aren't to be held back because of protecting those that are apart of our hurt. There is wisdom and grace, but there isn't to be shame and hiding. And this is the raw hard place only Jesus can heal and guide. 

So for now, a piece. 

I am one such bird, and my wings were clipped. There are some who are afraid of my flight. I have been cajoled, manipulated, lied too, rejected, and made to feel worthless. This happening to me, has made my husband be clipped too...even my babies. After years of this I am worn. I am tired of feeling unwanted, unworthy of love, ashamed, and stained. I ache watching the veins of damage this has lined down into my marriage and family life. Of watching my husband struggle with feeling worthless, inept, unable, and unwanted...simply because He is mine. 

Several months ago I began some studies on breaking free from bondage. Studies on who I really am, because I have been won. 

Won. {Say it slow so soul will hear...}

This word feels like poetry on my tongue. There is One who thought I was worth fighting for. So He came after me. Whispered to me my value by laying down under all my tainted, hard, and wrong. Letting it be purged from me through His ruin. Then He rose up off that alter and told me I had a name. 

I have a name. 

Whispered to me like this flower of wanting... This promise of identity. New... 

Elizabeth...

" You shall be named 'House of God'. You shall be His welcome to the people." 

These studies have wrenched me open to the holy things. I have faced the lies I have believed, and broken soul ties with people I had put in God's place. A voice my whole life I had made stronger than God's...equal to God's. I have Sorrow over this, such holy sorrow. Because there is only One. 

One.

" But do not be called Rabbi ( said to those who love the place of honor); for One is your Teacher...for One is your Father...One is your Leader, that is Christ." Matthew 23: 8-10

Jesus has been peeling back layers, upon layers. Friends...it has all gone so deep. I believe so many lies about who I am. About what I am capable of with Jesus. Lies about who God is. Lies about what I am "supposed to do". Forms of thought I have believed about scripture, because of hearing it out of context, or because of pressure through its misuse. 

I began gobbling up this holy break through... I am who?! Jesus... Could it actually be? 

I am wanted for me.

Chosen individually. 

Loved personally. 

Talked to one on One.

I wear white. I. Am. Not...tainted, stained, or ruined.

I am New. 

Set apart with beautiful purpose. 

I am holy Worthy of love.

While this is sweetly wooing me whole, it takes time to undo horrible habits of thinking. It takes time to get used to what feels foreign. It's amazing how easy we "Israelite" our way back to Pharaoh,  because he is familiar. We are soul sick...and Love, God Himself,  is our holy antidote. I woke one day and He said it so plainly and kindly:

  " You are free, but now you must learn to think like a free person."

So this is where I am. Learning to stand and not feel guilty for doing so... When others scoff at the way I walk. When my motives, plan, or "doctrine" are questioned. Even talked about with others, when I am not present. I am learning to keep my feet firm and my heart mellow in His hands. 

"Stay. Stand tall, even when the storms come and hit you full on. When you feel the wind, mud, and pressure. Even when it feels so wrong...Stay. Stay. Stay."

This learning to walk free can actually feel wrong. This living a "yes" to Jesus, in MY OWN life, can actually feel defiant. 

When we live our life with allegiance to someone other than Jesus, turning our soul away from them, and toward Jesus can raise emotions in outright turmoil. Be aware of this. False realities appearing real, will rise when you are breaking free. 

We have to learn to fly again, with healed wings. Under the care of One who whispers soft and kind as He tends our feathers. " Little one, you WERE meant to fly..."

I wrote the following, to a kindred heart, when in so much pain a few weeks ago. I share this because its a coming in my soul... Of the clearer things. These holy lines showing themselves in earth sand.

~~~~~

 "This, All these years, has slowly killed us for too long. We need to be done. 

Friend...Fight against being legalistic. Know "where" you get what you believe, and from who. Legalism can kill souls and change lives. Worst weapon in the world, cause Jesus name is slapped on to it. Christians are ruining Christianity. Makes my heart hurt. Most churches, even families are forgetting Jesus. The real one. This is important sis, seek to learn it. Nate and I are bloody. We have been wrecked. And for what? Religion. Reputation. Rules. Standards. An attempt for one man to have his glory. But not for love. Love is the only antidote. The real kind. The kind in Jesus veins, and in God's heart. Not the one Christians claim but too often don't understand. We have had our value stripped, our salvation questioned, our worth trampled, our souls mangled, our bodies "stress aged", and our normal realities and joys  in marriage and parenting robbed. It is deadly. Promise me you will look into this yourself. Know if what you believe is Jesus, not what Christians have adapted. Cause what you then turn to give out, will either cause life or death... In the name you claim. Jesus'. Legalism makes us liars. Liars about who Jesus and His Dad are. About how they love, stay, reach, rescue, touch, and look upon the messy. Legalism makes us Pharisees. The very people Jesus fought against, ran from, outwitted, made foolish, and corrected. They made some of the same claims legalistic Christians make. Pharisees boycotted, shunned, snubbed, laid standards, and had clubs. But Jesus? He broke laws of His own religious culture, to touch the lepers, and look into the eyes of the whores. We tell His story wrong, and in the wrong attitude, tone, and often even reality. I am gonna tell it raw. Like His love, for all of us messy people. I am a daughter of the Gap. I don't belong to the religious, nor to the world. I am the raw girl in the middle. I am to be His welcome in these middle places. For the ones who really want to know the raw Jesus. The person, Jesus. 

First though. I've got to heal. I don't know how. Skin back on dry bones. A field locust have eaten. Stripped, but still here."

I am in a war zone. I am won, I am. But we have to learn His voice. To sense it, hear it, know it even in the thick. When the lights are out and the air is toxic...learn to recognize His rhythm. And this is hardest in the war zone of legalism. In Churches, families, and one on one interactions. 

Legalism hides. In places where laughter, smiles, and fun traditions gather. My whole life I have thought of it as the staunch people. The stuffy churches who regulate dress and speech, money given and denominational allegiance. And while it is that, it hides the worst in the normal churches. The normal looking, seemingly happy families. 

               ~Pride & Judgement~

Legalism is pride. Pride that says there is only one way, and it's mine. Pride that determines "a right" that is uniform for all people. I am not speaking of what is biblical. Because Jesus is the One way... But trouble comes when we adapt our own ideas and find scripture to back us up on those agendas. We make our preferences dogmatic and "holy". We misuse scripture, out of context, to control someone. To form a sort of loyal empire, bringing honor and accolades back to itself continually. Jesus is lost in these spaces. Judgements pose as discernment. 

~"Judgement is attacking another person's character or motives- and is characterized by a lack of love... " 

~"Pride and Christlikeness simply cannot coexist." 

( Excerpts from Grace That Breaks The Chains. - Anderson, Miller, and Travis)

This leaves no room for Jesus's art, in each of us. No room for the flower to open, the wings to fly. What of the wild free? What of the stories told by the messy people? The Mary Magdeline's and Lepers. What of the tattooed ones,  marked by redemption? Or of the addict who finally found Love that filled that void?

We judge by looks, speech, occupation, or passions. We line up, and measure, by sins committed on what level. We mark with tallys and scorecards. Only the cleanest, smartest, and most talented survive. The rest drop to the bottom and pile messy. So the church, or moms and dads, friends and neighbors, let go of "doors". People...like ripe harvest art, laying scored and scarred at the bottom of the barrel. They churn with questions that love could answer. Love, that if lived out like a story, could say the name of Jesus. If homes and hearts were opened, redemption could be shown with actual skin on it. The fact is, the raw messy are always the ripest. They have seen the pitch places and are ready for light. The stark becoming the holy. So why do we shove them under us? Why do we turn our eyes from the homeless, refuse to talk to the gay employees, or to be grace in all the rotting spaces? We pull our light out in boycott, and the dark gets darker. We are called to be salt, to be light on a hill, but instead we hoard it for ourselves. It's the Christian empires, where Jesus over turns tables. You'll find Him out in the street, robe dirty from travel, lifting the chin of the whimpering whore. Stones flying, He steps in. He calls her daughter by just holding her gaze. And yet, we turn our face from the dirty.  We forget the promiscuous have a name. That the gay movement is individual people, that Jesus doesnt want to perish. That corporate companies, like Starbucks, and Target, employing these families...need people on the inside to speak light when their up line plans darkness. The homeless man on the corner may be pan handling for booze, but kindness still imprints gospel.

                    

                       ~My Plea~

Christians. Please... Please stop this. Stop turning your eyes from the cross dressers and gays. Stop boycotting stores with people inside who need light. People inside who have lives, filled with pain, and questions. Stop judging your own kind, just because they are different then you. Dress different, talk different, read a different version of the bible, or have a glass of wine. Stop telling people how to raise cookie cutter kids. We are not God. We are not granted the judge's seat. He never said we could sit there. God is the only One who can sit in that seat,  AND STILL SEE PEOPLE, instead of issues. This seat is too great for us. And when we sit in it, we smear His name, and we murder souls. Too strong to palette? I know. Its hard to hear, but its true. There is a reason people cringe when they hear we are Christians. A reason people instantly get defensive. Now i know we have stands morally that are strong, and they should be. But we need to see the person, before we address a sin we know no background on. Cause that's what the real Jesus did. Do you see their eyes, and their soul, before you formulate your correction or a rebuttal in your head? Before you say the " right thing", do you pause before the Lord, and align your will to His heart? This matters. 

The gospel without love, isn't the gospel.  We do more damage than good when we open our mouth before we let Jesus lay His heart for a person upon ours.  No one wants to hear what they have done wrong, or are doing wrong, before they know WHO loves them while they are "yet dirty". 

"While i was yet a sinner", He chose me... He chose you,  Loved you.

                ~I Am Not Perfect~

I'm not. I am so far from it. I'm the girl who committed one of the sins Jesus says He hates. I did it repetitively. I was spiritually prideful. I spent years of my life, lying about God. I told people with my judgements, and my self righteous air, that God loves us when we perform well. When we do things just so, and abandon all sins first, especially the "dirtiest" ones. My ugly pride told people,  "You can be like me!"  I judged with my heart, sized up people with my eyes, giving advice i had no experience on to give. I made people feel bad about themselves. 

I made people afraid of God. I lied about Love.

So when i say these things, i have experience on both sides. I have been the Pharisee, and i have been the "not enough".  Jesus has produced a passion in me for Love.  Not the love applied to everything by our population. But real Love. The Person of Love. A passion for His heart, and for His open door.  

I love to imagine Jesus eyes.  When i get to go home, i want to ask Him for a playback of those moments...those redemption glances. To the Whore in the street. The Leper. The woman who had bled, with Shame, for over 12 years. The cripple who lay beside Bethsaida, lurching to be noticed in every water ripple. That moment! Can you imagine? He was overlooked. By people and opportunities to be healed. Till one day, that day... When he must have seen a shadow stand over him. Like this holy cleft in the Rock, like the shadow of His wing had come. Then how Jesus must have knelt down, raising the begger's undeserving chin. This moment...where He looks into His eyes, only his eyes.  In moments like holy hush, speaking the mattering things into his soul. Saying his name. Others were healed by ripple, but this one? He got the personal gaze. I want to see these moments replayed... i long for it.  Because i too have known these eyes.

                  ~Game Changer~

One of the greatest moments of my life was when I realized how dirty my sin was. How prostitutes and drug addicts had nothing on me. Jesus said He hated my sin of choice. Hated. I wept when the sorrow hit me. Cause we can't be doing this. This walking around giving people the impression that God is distant and unloving, until " blaa, blaa, blaa". Is it doing the greatest two commandments when I turn my nose up at the women with Meth mouth... At the guy who goes to my church I caught buying a pack of cigarettes... Or to the women at the Starbucks counter who just told me she is gay? How is it love to shun people? To tell people what God prefers above their dirty lives? Jesus walked dirt roads for days, with those even dirtier clamouring at his garments. He did. And once more, he stopped and talked to them. Had supper with them. Drew them with loving kindness. Told stories to them about His Dad. So this way of life "Christianity" has adapted, to make look a tad different than the Pharisees of yesterday? It is not ok. 

I can't be apart of it. I cannot carry my bible on Sunday and tell people lies about God on Monday. Jesus Christ has no to do list for the people. What He does have is an invitation in His hands...in the shape of two scars... And their inscription reads, " I was enough." 

I want to say people's names in public like a prayer. Telling their soul how they matter, because God has given me a heart for that. I want them to feel welcome in my presence and intrigued by my love. I want them to watch me say the name of Jesus as if He is waiting for me at the cafe table over there. I want them to trust me with their ugly, without

fear, so asking questions isn't scary. I want to tell people with my life, why I love Jesus Christ. No to do list, no right answer without missing a beat. Just a whole lot of overflow from the God who calls me friend. And the gospel? Well. I want that told through me without me knowing it, because I loved well. Just like He asked:

" And He said to them, ' You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ' You shall love your neighbor as yourself,' On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets." 

                                   ~Matt. 22:37-40

On these two, depend the whole.

So I had to tell you now. This is my story. THIS is my song.

And you? 

You're loved too. 

Just as you sit. 

Promise. 

A post never published. Till now.

I found this post I wrote awhile ago. I never published it. In a reread, it is birth pains. To my last post... The push before I chose to come into the light. So...Take encouragement if you are climbing mountains away from sidewalks. It will be ok: 

Some of us are different. 

 Like a Whippoorwill calling out in the darkness. A bird song on the backside of day... We push in to know, that our make isn't a mistake. That all this different in our feathers, and in our need to sing at all the wrong times, is on purpose. Apart of a design.

In key. Even beautiful. 

That all this not fitting in, may be apart of a story. Not one of rejection and morphed attempts to change our soul shape. But a flagship pushing us toward using our song to tell a different part of His holy story. Perhaps some of us are a bird in the night. Just maybe the Wild of God, and the love of God, have to awaken the sleeping. And just maybe He made the odd birds, the qwerky, the unfit, the loud, the colorful...on purpose.

I am learning that most people are afraid of an artist soul. A soul that bucks the rigid rule, the one who hears a call outside the lines, and isn't afraid to go off path. It isn't that we serve two different Gods, though that's what many worry about. I think instead, it's that some of us aren't afraid to see the wild happy in faith.

In my years, I have learned the church way well. I know what is expected. I am familiar with the favored verses and songs. I know what is supposed to be, and what certainly should not be. Problem is, even in the midst of all the wonderful things I learned about Jesus... He never seemed complete. 

I think most are afraid to say Jesus felt happiness.  That Jesus laughed, and played around with those dear to Him.  That it's more than likely He was a stinker to make His mama laugh in the kitchen. We think that to give Jesus emotions is to strip Him of divinity. And I believe that coudnt be farther from the truth. We need to remember He was a man too... For a reason. Yes, all of the ones we are taught still stand... We needed to be saved. We needed a sacrifice big enough. We needed someone who understands how hard our world is. But we also needed to know He was someone we could know. Like as a real, down to earth, full of emotion, person. People don't have tea with a ticket book. They don't pour their soul out to a Harvard Law. And yet, the church today makes Him that. A Definer of lines. The walls to a box not all are allowed in. A club. We forget He felt things. And that this was a huge connecting piece. The piece that reached out to the "cast offs". The ones the church shut out, the ones said to be law breakers. The Leper, the Adulterer, the Beggars, the Lesser, the Hated, and those "not enough". He was person to them. Gentle feeling eyes, and kind invitations. He was the " I am not afraid to be seen, with you." Person. I believe it was these people that heard Him laugh. The Johns laying on His chest... The ones who defied the "you can't do that!" 

But when they did... When they took the risk, to come out into the light of His welcome, they were changed. Kindness does that. This Love eradicating black holes and leaving pure voices. Voices who know what it is to have Love Himself be the Redeemer of all their dark places.

So today if your on a dirt trail, and the hard sidewalk mocks you, just breathe. Their is purpose in going off road. Jesus is personal. He is emotional, making Him incredibly relational. So don't be afraid. Go for a walk, with a heart full of Whippoorwill song. He will tell you that it's true...Your design isn't a mistake. 

You're loved, needed, and wanted.

 I promise.

Empty Tables

There have been the things I have noticed throughout the years. The past five especially. These signs of ill regard, detachment, and an increasing lack of genuine concern. People missing people, the ones they meet in public, and the ones in front of their noses. 

 I first noticed the tables. 

They're increasingly empty. 

We have decorated homes we don't open up to others, and good dishes that only hold dust. We worry about if our houses are clean enough, when no one sees anyway. Rsvp's go Un-respected and un-answered. Or worse, invitations have ceased to come at all. To a BBQ, for a cup of coffee, or any act of personal welcome. I have worried over it, cried about it, and been completely bewildered.

See I am a people heart. I love them. The art of them, the stories of them. All these moments of Jesus waiting. Waiting to give love, to tell a soul, " you matter ".

I love to read name tags and say their own name to them...like speaking His whisper into their heart. At Walmart, Starbucks, or on a note, to my mailman, in my box on a Monday. Because Jesus has seen me. Has time for me. Holds me while I cry, uses my name, and promises me I am not a mistake. And this Friend, this God I adore, He has asked me to love as I have been loved. This extravagant, personal, presence. 

But the tables... They're collecting dust like the hollow echo of the forgetting.

We are too busy. Too wrapped up in a profile picture and a selfie. Too in awe of our own navel and our insatiable crave for knowledge.

We Google sicknesses, tattoos, travel routes, and flower shops. Best restaurants and hairstyles. We spy on our "old friend" from high school, and spit nails when we find out our morning post led to loads of gossip, leaving us feeling misunderstood and quite livid. We go on family outings and each member is seen nose kissed by a different device. And should I Shazam this song I am hearing in Target? It's endless. This hope sucking, air taking, time devouring hunger. Hunger to KNOW. 

 I grieve this reality a lot. Because sometimes I feel like maybe I was born in the wrong era. But mostly because I believe we have been taken, and we don't even know it. 

We forget that knowledge can wear Sheeps clothing, appearing a whole lot like wisdom. We forget that satan twists a tiny, and we wake up biting an apple. That this bite can still be taken, over and over again. We forget that even here, God keeps His promises.

"...if you eat of it, you will surely die."

We continually go to that tree in the garden. The one satan promises will make us know all things. The garden of Eden was long ago, but it's story has never left the core of us. We still have that choice, day in and day out. Walk with God in the cool of the day, or will we go to that fruit again and risk the dying. 

Death...

Of relationships because we didn't have time.

Of our peace, because all this knowing is worry mulling. 

Of simplicity, because enough is never enough.

Of focus, because all we see is noise.

Of priorities, because we are losing the knowledge of what really matters.

Someone once told me how much of a gift it is to have the world at our fingertips, and right in our pocket. Truth be told, we do. And truth be told? I believe it will be the undoing of us. Few will cling to wisdom's wall and find their way back out. 

See, we aren't made to know all things. We were made to worship. To trust the One who knows all, so we don't have too. Trust always builds the intimate things, nurturing the mattering things. 

Do we trust our iPhone and android more than we trust Him? Because He is the only One who can know all things, and still have time for people. Time for me...For you. Satan tells us we can know all things, carry this world of knowledge in our pocket, and still have time. For people, and well...whatever we want...right?

I feel like I am watching the enemy bind us up. And not one by one, but indeed, by the masses. And I have ached for weeks, because I can't stop it. I can know full well, in heart and skin, that Jesus tells me people are the second greatest concern He has...and that He wants me to live with that "second greatest" always warming in a ready heart. But it becomes increasingly hard when we can't reach people behind phones, laptops, television, and Internet hype. 

Social media is growing increasingly toxic. Maybe not in low doses, but it takes a strength most don't have to keep it in a low ratio. Let's be honest...sadly honest...social media has become a drug. It's dumbing down our society into a delusion that they are actually being social. Social when no person is in front of them. Just a glowing screen full of self image we work hard to display to a spying world of on lookers. Why?

Because ultimately, we want to be known as much as we seek to know all things. So we put our selves out there. Snap chats, bird-less tweets, Facebook posts, and endless profile pics. It's the things of Hashtags and hunger. Always this hunger. We do it to want the scoop, and to make ourselves appear, perhaps, as we wish we were.

Now I am a blogger { *smile* }. I use the Internet, and I can text as fast as the next person. I know social media and Internet is not all bad, and that God has and will use it. But I am alarmed at its growing misuse. Our out of bound levels of addiction to it, causing people to MISS people. How is that possible... Because it's about people right? Mostly I just think it's about us. Wanting to be known and going to the wrong place to generate it. The imitation result is isolating us all, leaving us more at risk, vulnerable, and increasingly lonely.

Jesus says we are not to forsake the fellowship of the brethren... but we are. We, as a society, do more friendship time with technology then we do humans. So much so that people are becoming uncomfortable around other people. We are becoming the isolated lonely, though we stand amidst the crowd. So we pull away. We struggle with being real away from a computer, phone, or without a typed out "post".

The enemy is gaining ground the same way he did in the beginning. 

Knowledge. 

He whispers in a voice that sounds like our own. "Seek to know...and you will be like God... Seek to know and you will be at peace about that weird rash...about how much weight you would have to lose to become more acceptable...about if your right about so in so being the first divorced person in your class... "

On and on he spins it. And friends, we are buying it. Hook. Line. And sinker. If we are to be honest, we all believe knowledge will save us. Save us embarrassment, time, energy, money, worry, effort, and from this always encroaching hopelessness... But what about Jesus? 

Jesus saving us.

Jesus saying we are His.

Jesus giving us peace through hard health days.

Jesus showing us how to spend our time.

Jesus, giving us the joy of being known, by Him. 

Jesus providing for all our financial needs.

Jesus being our hope, peace, joy, dare I say...happiness?

Jesus promising us a future and a hope.

And people? The ones he said we are to love the most, after Him... We are leaving them behind. We are too busy to see the hurting, the lonely, the raw and real of humanity right in front of our "self" worshipping faces. 

There is a man near our home who lost his wife about a year ago. When we first moved in he had two beautiful white rocking chairs on their front porch. He put them away for winter and I couldn't help but feel an ache when this spring he only put out one on his porch. This man is in his late seventies. Neighbors have told me he and his wife were so in love. The cancer that took her, was long and hard. And with his kids living in California, the loneliness is stark. These first few days of spring, with each walk I take, I am taken aback by that lone rocking chair. Why at night it just sits there, glowing sharp. And I am grieved at how this Spring, this man believed he only need put out one chair... Because no one would come, and his beloved was gone.

 I wonder if our society's "way" grieves Jesus. How technology has become a large stumbling block keeping us from the greatest two. How people sit on white rockers alone, in their greatest times of need, because we're just going too fast.

satan, in his vile brilliance, just wants us to forget. Forget to seek FIRST God's kingdom. To forget  to love others as Jesus loved us. 

" ...You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. ON THESE TWO COMMANDMENTS DEPEND THE WHOLE law and the prophets."

 ~Matt. 22:37-40

On these two, depend the whole.

I wonder if John would have loved Jesus as much as he did if Jesus never had supper with him, walked with him? What if Jesus only connected with people through the technology He knew was coming anyway... Would John have grown to love Jesus as deeply if they just texted? Or if Jesus occasionally "liked" his Instagram post... Surely John could build love for a Savior on that right?

Or the leper Jesus dared touch ( Matt 8:1-3). Jesus broke a religious law to be personal with him, using close proximity and touch. What if Jesus would have just sent a healing prayer text... The power of personal risk would have been lost. Deep personal risk. Jesus let go of his reputation and risked his ministry... Because he knew the untouchable man, needed to know he was worth it. Jesus looked into people's eyes. He saw them. Perhaps this idea of what if seems extreme... And yet it's exactly what we do. We don't relate personally to 367 people in a friend list. We allow 367 people to spy on us... But what about a cup of coffee when one of them is hurting? What about mowing her lawn because her husband died last year? What about looking them in the eye when they risk telling you their raw? Even if it makes YOU uncomfortable...

Why do we hide and pose as the caring?

I know that prayer texts and technology can be helpful, but not if it's hiding. Not if its side skirting personal touch. It just isn't the example Jesus gave. Technology  rarely makes us go out of our way to be personal. Usually it makes it easier for us to get around having too. We even "fight" with friends and family over text. We seek forgiveness without looking people in the eye, when looking them in the face calls out the holy in things. It tells more than we know. Saying full faced, "you matter. To Jesus, and to me."

 

I was at Village Inn this week. I love these sort of places. The ones the elderly generation adopts. They come together in these spots, and they do it often. And when I come, I find myself watching them, smiling quietly to myself. What they do is captivating. Amidst coffee cups and laughter, they meet. Week after week after week. Trouble is, I have had the reoccurring thought lately, that when their generation dies, so will the art they have mastered. This meeting each other for the joy of it. For coffee, a bite to eat, catching up, and being there for one another. I feel like bravely walking up and asking them if there is something I can learn so I can help save it. That my generation has been lazy and lax. And that the beauty they do so well will be lost forever... I feel like asking them if I can sit with them too. Can this 35 sit amongst their 70? Because I don't want the art to disappear, I want to be apart of it.

The past couple of weeks, I have wanted to put my iPhone in a drawer. I have thought more and more about how wonderful it would be to live off the technology grid. To live slower, look longer, and be fully present in each moment. To make changes that nurture Jesus idea of personal. He said in Hebrews, not to forsake fellowship. But here we are, doing just that. 

" and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; all the more, as you see the day is drawing near."

                            ~ Hebrews 10:24-25

I don't want to be included in the "habit of some." I want to live brave. Brave enough to look into people's eyes, so they know Jesus sees them too. I want to not check my phone every couple of minutes, while I am with someone else. Because I want to be one who stimulates love and good deeds. And I can't do that well, if I am lost in social technology. 

My prayer is that you won't roll your eyes at this post, before you ask yourself some questions. Before you allow God a moment to talk with you on a very important topic...people. The ones He asked you to love, the same way He personally has loved you. Can you do that inside your current habits? If you had your phone and computer taken away, would your relationships function? Do you help others with physical presence?

Unchecked, and imbalanced technology use, can lose people. It can take love instead of give it. People feel rushed, overlooked, and frustrated on a regular basis. When we check our phone while with them. When we choose to discuss serious things behind the protection of a screen, instead of in person. When we don't have time to look up, to see their eyes. Our habits can feel like weight. Weight others have to carry because we have become more and more impersonal and careless. When we become antisocial because of our high tech obsession.

I read this verse that was describing Pharisaism, but oddly, it described a bit of our society too. This being all talk, and perhaps some pictures, but little to no effort. And of the effect this can have on other people's souls.

"And they tie up heavy loads, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves are unwilling to move them with so much as a finger. But they do all their deeds to be noticed by men... 

But the greatest among you shall be a servant" ~ Matt. 23:4-5a, 11.

I am not pointing fingers. I am convicted and grieved, as I hope you are too. Because Jesus way with others was present. In words, deeds, and effort. And He is our example. 

Friend. Would you be willing to ask yourself the hard questions too? Please? There is a fading art at stake. And it matters.

Much love,

Liz

Wife Corner

I have been "wife thinking" a lot this week. And most of it, I must say, has been in the way of conviction. I keep pondering over how powerful we are. How truly "scary" powerful we are... 

We hold a sort of air supply in our hands, all the time. Our actions act as a clamp. In a moment, or in habit of years, we clamp down and cut off air supply to our husbands souls. 

I know. Sounds horribly harsh and like that implies way to much power right? But I think it's true. Hence the scary part I mentioned earlier. See on the one hand we are designed, and backed by God, to be a helpmate to our husbands. We are given the power of heaven to be crazy good at this. But we have "flesh", and when we act in it, that coin flips. And by default a powerful good can become an impacting bad due going rogue. God doesn't take our position away when we walk ugly( oh this baffling grace!). But the hard of it is, He will allow us to hurt our husbands by keeping us in this place of impact while we are soul sick. 

Here is what I mean. We will go with a simple example such as how we respond the moment our man walks in the door. I confess, through the stress of the last months, my exhaustion has taken my drive. My drive loss has caused a skewed view and a complaining habit( recently lamented over and repented of...thank you Jesus!). In turn, when my sweet Mr. was walking in the door, he was met with a virtual grunt and scowl. This instantly affected his mood, and separation instantly occurs. He is on edge and inevitably snaps at kids. I get annoyed he is so grumpy and wish he would see I clearly had a hard day! See where I am going here? Now my hotsie totsie Mr. could have chosen to stay calm and kind when met with this cold front, but that's any of us in a perfect world... Here is the point though. A wife is a barometer. We single handedly can control the pressure and ambiance of the home. Under barometric pressure shifts my physical body can actually get a migraine. So is it so hard to imagine a soul can have the same? It's the position gals. This amazing gift in this place of impact.

Annoying right?

I have fallen so many times on this one. The frustration that I can't have a bad day without the whole house falling apart... That I can't feel frustrated without the family wishing mom was in a better mood... 

I can hear the wide spread amens now! Lol 

We are nurturers ladies. By God's beautiful design, we have been given this space. And it's true, we CANNOT have a bad day without impact. And it will be vast. But instead of us getting angry about it, maybe we should consider why.

We can make our husband feel unstoppable. A good woman at his back and a safe home to recharge in can literally make him feel like the luckiest man alive. This makes him work harder, smile bigger, and look forward to coming home each night. When we don't do this.... Because we have taken hurts, exhaustion, self protection, or irritation on as our driving attitude... They can start dreading coming home. Dreading the wedge they feel between themselves and their bride. Dreading the silence. Dreading the scowl, sighs, and unkind gestures we somehow think we can pass off as still being a "good" wife. We tell them with our attitude they are failing us, that they are not enough. They then get up, go to work grumpy, and when that co-worker at work rambles off a rude comment about women... He is fully charged up with reasons to agree with the notion that we are the ball and chain. Before long we lose his heart. His eyes may wander when out in public, or when alone with an internet's blinking cursor. He rationalizes it all away with:

" my wife doesn't appreciate anything I do anymore..."

" she doesn't seem to think I am attractive anymore."

" she doesn't have time to help me."

" she is always angry or annoyed."

" all she does is complain about what I don't do."

Though we are not responsible for a man grumbling about us to his friend, or abusing the Internet, we have made a point of impact to cause influence over his decisions. Influence that was given to us as a gift by God, influence we have soured with an ungrateful heart. Jesus will hold us accountable for our part. Blaming our men may work in our grumbling mind, but it won't stand in God's divine reality.

I know when they walk in the door, it can be so hard because their is so much history. Of hardships, hurts, misunderstandings, and years of coping habits. But God has made this stand out to me as a starting point this week. What home do I present when he clocks out? Holy safe and wanting, or guarded and removed...

Nathan and I have had a very hard year. We have legit reasons to be angry, hurt, exhausted, and worn clean through. And here is what we have discovered. It's not possible for us to have a thriving marriage that stands in a room full of dueling expectations. We both will lose every time. Fights will be born, and positions burrowed into. Discord, defensiveness, and rights will take our peace. And for what? To be able to stand  over the other person with a "ha! Told ya I was right!!" If your spouse is below your feet, your still haven't won. Being "right" won't warm you at night, cook you a warm meal, or make a good date. It just makes you lonely and bitter.

Jesus pulled some curtains back for us recently. We saw our alarming habits forming, and our outside hards pressing in with no end in sight. And if we have bad habits and circumstances we can't change, what can we do? 

Bring our love back.

Love doesn't have to wait to give itself away. It can always begin now. The Spirit started showing us clearly that we needed to let go of the hard and the score cards, and choose to remember instead. Remember what matters. Remember what we like about each other. What we have to be grateful for. We realized we needed to acknowledge we cannot fix our hards, in essence we had to let our house fall. This time, a soul based one. "Unless the Lord builds the house, they that labor, LABOR IN VAIN..."

God showed us we have to bring back our love through becoming focused. Focused on what we have to be grateful for. Focused on doing fun things together, and making our relationship a priority over stress and hardship. We needed to play more, laugh more, and remember what a gift the other person is.

So here is the challenge. Sometimes, it can mean that one person does this and one person not so much. So what then?

Greet them at "the door" with joy anyway.

A Kindred friend and I have been pouring over our wife callings. We have grieved God showing us ways we have cut off air supply to our men. We have been challenged by God, each other, and the word, to return to gratitude and sacrificial love. This requires brave joy. It requires an overcoming love and a standing forgiveness. We have decided to talk once a week and check up on each other's obedience and gumption. Maybe you have been convicted of similar things. Is there someone who can hold you accountable in picking up your convictions with brave joy? I'd encourage it. It's helping us!  This banding together of the beautiful, us wives with renewed passion for position.

And you know, we have started with the front door. The beginning place for what happens in a home. Here is some other things Jesus has been challenging us with:

* stay in the word

* fight to return to gratitude and a positive attitude.

* spew out on hubby less, pour out to Jesus more.

* make more relaxed memories together...like playing cards in the bedroom, or going on walks...

* take joy when your spouse compliments you. Receive it and trust it.

* over compliment, thank, and encourage

* take up joy each time you see them

 again after an absence.

These are just beginners for us. Jump starts for the weary heart. Because:

" Set up for yourself road marks, Place for yourselves guide posts; Direct your mind to the highway, The way by which you went. Return O virgin of Israel..." ~ Jer. 31:21

I am seeing the power I have been given. This amazing position God has said I may have. This incredible ability to empower someone to live a fuller, more God filled life. Because when we obey Jesus and take up our love again, we open the door for our spouse to hear the voice of God clearly. In a sense clearing a way for the greatest relationship they will ever know in heaven and while on earth.

Let's not be a trap door ladies. Open your eyes and see the power that has been given you. What will you nurture, life or destruction? We all choose in that moment they come home...

"Hi baby, I missed you!" With a wet smack on the cheek. Kiss hope right into the core of them, and never let go.

Letting Go of Home

Some of you may remember months back I told of the State taking our farm under imminent domain. It has been rough on me. I'm not going to lie. I had all these plans to get on the other side and write a beautifully inspiring blog post. But you know what? I haven't gone through it like a glowing example of brave things. Or even with a joyful heart. 

It has kinda felt like I have gone numb. Like realities move me to and fro in a torrent of motion. And in all the jerking, water swallowing, and wave crashing... All I feel I can claim is that I survived. To the cancer patient this word makes sense to me, even has honor in it... But when you feel like you never reach live, you just flop from one survive to another. Then the word hurts. A lot. 

 

I have spent months packing. Making piles for thrift shop donations, and loading trailers full of trash. I have walked my mind down memory paths, and cried more than that. All I kept thinking was that I wanted to be brave. To go through this as a good example to my kids. To give testimony to a grateful heart and a humble yes. 

For all our good intentions, sometimes there is just life. This life on a busted earth. An earth we demand heavens standards on, but continuously get shocked by the hard true of its brokenness. If there is one thing I am learning it's that I don't write this story. And though I am beginning to accept God intends me to write, I will never be the author. In all this fallen, He is the only redeeming worth.

I kept walking the halls as my home got less homey... I would cry over memories of my baby girls first steps here... Of my young boy becoming a kind young man. Moments of dancing with my husband in the kitchen, spaghetti sauce bubbling onto stove... And I hurt under the weight of a tightening chest. Like the question "why" was taking my air. 

It's just a house right? Just land. 

My land. The land my husband fought to wrap up in a package and put a red bow on for me. Land to breath in, feel safe on. You know I was raised in a city? Yeah. The millions of Phoenix. The whole time I was there I ached to be free. Like there were bands around my lungs, I couldn't breath.  I wanted to be free of constant noise, and the endless cramming of too much in spaces. 

I had a girlfriend when I was 12 there. I remember the day she told me Phoenix was putting in another freeway, and that her house was gonna be bulldozed. I remember watching them wreck that neighborhood. Piles on piles of concrete, brick, and metal that had once been someone's memories. My friends memories. I remember driving on that freeway for the first time, and knowing the exact moment I was on top of my friends old house. And all I could think was, " I can't imagine how they all must feel."

I can't imagine...

My husband and I worked to get out of that city... Of all that cram to have more. We made it to a small town first, worked some more, and then jumped and bought this home, this land. To me it was a dream come true. I made it! And I never imagined the city habit of wanting new and better, of wanting more, would find me here. But it did. 

When my husband came home that day and said, " come with me, you need to sit down baby..."  I would not, in a million years, have thought he would say what he did. 

"... For a new freeway....."

So this is what this feels like. Someone's wanting more, having no thought for what they will take. Progress? Mmm.

I had a migraine for days. I felt like the city was stalking me. Like all my efforts were in vain.

It wasn't long after that my husband said he was relieved. It must have taken him such courage to say that to me. Relieved.  Relieved?

He began telling me how he was tortured at night wondering how he could keep us here. How he could keep from letting me down. See we had bought this house when overtime was a promise... But we since had had that stripped, and gone through two job changes, on top of my husband endlessly working his own business. He told me he was so tired of being scared, and that no matter how hard he worked, it always seemed to be in vain. That some other hardship always came up.

And that's how it was. Health problems, family problems, parenting hardships, financial ups and downs, and the strains it puts on a marriage. He was right. It's been a really hard six years. We had wonderful memories too... Shooting the best firework displays ever, with my precious inlaws... My babies birthday parties... My first horse...Amazing thunderstorms rolling in...and playing with our babies in open spaces... But there was always this feeling that no matter what we did, we couldn't overcome. Hard waves kept hitting, and my Nate kept working hard to sustain. So I get it. I get why he gave his all, had nothing to be ashamed of, and could just let go now. He gave me 7 wonderful years in a dream. I am proud of him.

I was up late, in my favorite spot in my house, that kitchen farm window. Looking out at my favorite tree silhouette... Jesus told me then. How we bought this dream out of His timing. The verse He told me has been playing through my mind these past few months as I process. 

"Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it."

                                 Psalm 127:1a

In. Vain.

I knew it was true. We felt all the years of its true. This was hard to swallow. 

I'm not gonna lie. I have wanted to run. I wanted to pack up my family, a few duffle bags and run. Stow up in a cabin somewhere, and find our peace again. Let go of all of the pain of all these years, and now of losing my home to a bulldozer. I am tired. I don't like who I see in the mirror. Pain rattling me to my bones. My health isn't good. My spine causes so much sorrow in our home, I can't find words. And I have troubled relationships in my family. Trouble that tangles your soul and leaves you undone. Changes in jobs, education, friendships, and safe places... You, whoever you are, I must tell you, I haven't gone through with grace. I have struggled, wept, gotten angry, lost my gratitude, and watched my hope fade. In all of it I have felt God detoxing my soul. Rattling me down to bone. Dry, cold, shaking bone. Like I am in this field, and I can't find home. I feel alone, forsaken, unloved, and mostly forgotten. This hasn't been my finest hour. I remember the day I was at my neurologist, two hours closer to Colorado... It was hard not to just keep going. My family, a duffle bag, and desperation...this seemed perfect to me. I cried when I turned the car to go back into all this. Back into migraines, relational trials, hard schedules, and hopelessness. Walking out the loss of a dream, and my safe place on top of it all.

Life is ugly sometimes. And we collapse under its weight. I haven't known how to stand up again. How to lead my kids through with thanksgiving, and show my husband my bravest smile. 

I may be undone, but I love Him. I love Jesus for all His being. So I wanted to at least end well for Him. Because amidst all of it, I did love my time here. With tree silhouettes and birds, my Lu's visits, and tea times with Tori. Pushing my babies in swings of sunlight, and holding my husbands hand on the back porch. 

So I gave Jesus a wall. A wall of thank you's. I left the sharpie pen out, and as I worked to pack up this life, as I cried inside these walls... About everything... I wrote. Wrote ways I felt Him here. In laughter, birthday parties, and her coming down my hall for coffee each morning she visited. Ways I had known his grace and tasted His goodness while living my dream. 

People whom my home had meant something too, joined in to create this place of praise. Telling me by text from faraway states what to write, or stopping by and writing themselves. My children writing too. I loved watching it fill. See it felt like with each thanksgiving I wrote, my soul could find a way through. Like maybe gratitude really is this lifeline.

And so it filled. Slowly and sweetly, like this sacrifice offering that really did cost me. And all I wanted was to prepare the wall like an alter. Because I may be a mess, but God is good and I wanted Him to know I still believed. I wanted Him to receive a gift in every word written here. Like incense from the giving up. And when the bulldozer pulls up that day...when the walls that I felt safe in...the place I nursed my baby girl...or taught my son how to forgive and love anyway in...when the bricks crumble and that dozer hits this wall... I want it to be the fire lit on an alter of praise. The knowing that Jesus will pick up every holy word, and receive it as love. In that moment He can read every word and know, I still choose Him when He takes away.

I did my final walk through the halls, the final words on that wall. And when I locked the door, I felt so undone. Like every issue, problem, and hardship was coming with me, but I was walking away from my safe place in it all. It felt wrong. And so, so hard. But those words echo in me still..." Unless He builds the house..."

 

My name means house of God.

Now He has to rebuild me. These months, I have been bulldozed. My ideas of what should be, have fallen. My hope has been lost, and I have been unraveled. Every ounce of me is laying in a rubble pile. My heart is broken, my body is weak and havoced with pain. I can't heal myself, and I can't write my story. See I am this house. And I am falling too. Because if I don't, I won't make it. I am meant to be rebuilt. So He will come and receive me, another offering. He will read each word written on the feeble walls of my heart. And I will be incense. He will tend to me, heal me, and breath life back into these bones. He will build this house and I will be whole. Only then will I stand. Only then will I be home.

Elizabeth. House of God.

Here is the beginning of welcome. Of His purposes in me. As a wife, a mama, a writer, and friend. The beginning of being built to be His kindness and welcome to others. The end of living in vain. God has a personal plan for this skin I live in. Rebuilt, renewed, and whole. How I ache for it. 

I probably won't drive down that country road for awhile. And it will hurt when I see an off ramp on top of the place I sat at a picnic table with my kids... But I will keep my eyes on the coming. For He is good, truly, truly good! And all this rubble isn't for naught.

So here I am. In city limits again. Learning to overcome panic attacks as I walk in a neighborhood and wonder why I am here...Learning to open my curtains and be ok with houses right beside me. To settle and make cozy new walls. Learning that home, and horizons... Freedoms spaces and the staying joy...is in Him. Him alone. The safe place no bulldozer may have, and where no heart is held in vain. 

Here I am. Learning that He is my mountain, horizon, open prairie, and saving grace.

He does give.

And He does take away.

Blessed be the Name of the Lord.